Americans born after World War II, for most of that time, have experienced prosperity and medical progress hitherto unknown in human history. We have been led to expect that, given enough resources, medical science can conquer virtually anything. In an undated story . . . Continue reading →
“[T]hat we must be reconciled to God, and justified by the remission of our sins, and imputation of righteousness, before any sincere obedience to the law; that we may be enabled for the practice of it. They account, that this doctrine tends . . . Continue reading →
“Day one. Day one. Four weeks. I can do it. Day one. Day one.” She wore a wool hat pulled down low over her forehead, and a giant mask, which covered everything but her eyes, and gloves. She moved to the furthest . . . Continue reading →
It’s not uncommon to hear some people appeal to James 2:24 in order to argue that God saves people by faith plus works. In particular, some argue against the doctrine of justification by faith alone by appealing to this verse. They tend . . . Continue reading →
For the last several Lord’s Days I have been meditating on James 2:14 (and the surrounding context). I have been thinking about what James said to the largely Jewish congregation in Jerusalem. I think of James as a New Testament counterpart to . . . Continue reading →
The Reformed churches, confessions, and theologians have a high doctrine of the Holy Spirit. From the earliest days of the Reformation the Reformed devoted much time and energy to the person and work of the Spirit but they did so in a . . . Continue reading →
DEFINITION Conversion begins with the gracious gift of new life and gives rise to a genuine faith and repentance that continue throughout the Christian life. SUMMARY This essay surveys the history of the doctrine of conversion from the early church to the . . . Continue reading →
The gospel method of sanctification, as well as of justification, lies so far out of the ken of natural reason, that if all the rationalists in the world, philosophers and divines, had consulted together…” Thomas Boston, Preface to The Marrow of Modern . . . Continue reading →
Zacharias Ursinus (1534–83) was the principal author of the Heidelberg Catechism (1563). He was responsible for perhaps as much as 70% of the catechism, though the two source documents that he created, from which much of the catechism was formed, drew from many sources (including Luther), so the source criticism of the catechism is challenging. For more on the background of the catechism see Lyle Bierma et al ed., An Introduction to the Heidelberg Catechism: Sources, History, and Theology (2005) and J. I. Good, Good, The Heidelberg Catechism in Its Newest Light ( Philadelphia, PA: Publication and Sunday School Board of the Reformed Church in the United States, 1914). Continue reading →
The Heidelberg Catechism is in three parts: Law, Gospel, and Sanctification or Guilt, Grace, and Gratitude. This is not an artificial interpretation of the Catechism nor is it an artificial arrangement of the Christian faith. Question 2 outlines the Catechism for us: Continue reading →
How disgraceful it is for a servant of Christ not to know the command of His Lord, and to pursue some other, useless preoccupation, and fail to take an interest in the things which concern His Lord, who is our everlasting blessedness! . . . Continue reading →
“And here let it be remembered that we are not patrons of licentiousness and enemies of good works. For though we exclude them from the act of our justification and salvation, yet we maintain a profitable and necessary use of them in . . . Continue reading →
Hywel Jones is one of God’s gifts to his church. He is a model of piety and grace. He gave devotions every week in chapel for several years during his career at Westminster Seminary in California. One of those series was on . . . Continue reading →
I am interrupting the series on the doctrine of God again to do the call-in show I have been promising. With this episode, you the listener get to vote on the Heidelblog. You tell me which call you liked best and I . . . Continue reading →
3His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, . . . Continue reading →
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, 4by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. Continue reading →
This was seconded by an observation of some men’s dangerous mistakes, who of late days have taken upon them to give directions for the mortification of sin, who, being unacquainted with the mystery of the gospel and the efficacy of the death . . . Continue reading →
Since the 1970s and 80s the Dispensational-evangelical world has been involved in a running controversy over “the Lordship of Christ.” On one side are those Dispensationalists allied with Lewis Sperry Chafer, Charlies Ryrie, and Zane Hodges, who assert that so long as . . . Continue reading →
Dear Brother I want to thank you. Here, where I live, it is not easy to get Reformed teaching but thanks to technology I have been able to listen to the Heidelcast; specifically to the series on the Marrow of Modern Divinity. . . . Continue reading →